Miscellaneous Information

I joined the CDT after completing a 5 year MMath degree from the University of Edinburgh. At the outset of my degree I wanted to become a mathematical analyst or algebraist. However as time went on and I started to appreciate the power of mathematics I decided I wanted to do something interesting where I could leverage my technical skills whilst benefiting society in some way. In this regard the CDT has been a fantastic opportunity for me to solve interesting technical problems whose solution will have a real clinical impact. At the moment I am trying to develop an algorithm that when given a high resolution image of a retina would be able to estimate photoreceptor density. Technically this is a very interesting problem to solve and some preliminary work has been done using support vector machines to count the number of photoreceptors. But more importantly if we could solve this technical problem then we will have a valuable clinical tool that would allow earlier diagnosis of diseases affecting sight. Automated counting is an interesting problem in its own right but working on it at the CDT makes the work far more exciting as the end goal is to implement your ideas clinically.